This invention relates generally to formliners and more specifically to a form liner layout member that helps to maintain proper spacing and orientation of formliner sheets, thereby providing a more desirable cured wall.
Formliners are known in the industry and are often used with objects, such as “thin brick” inserts, to create a cast wall that appears to be traditional masonry. For example, thin bricks can be placed in a formliner that has a grid layout in a masonry pattern. Concrete can then be poured onto the formliner and thin bricks and allowed to cure, thus casting the thin bricks in the concrete panel. When the formliner is removed, the front face of the panel resembles traditional masonry. Some examples of formliners are described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/706,633 and U.S. Pat. No. 7,871,054, the entire disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties.
Formliners can suffer from problems of deformation due to applied loads and temperature change. Temperature alone can change the actual dimensions of a formliner sheet and cause migration in the specific location of joints. Further, the dimensions of a formliner sheet can change as materials are placed upon the formliner, for example due to deformation. When casting a wall panel using multiple formliner sheets, slight changes in the size and/or shape of the individual formliner sheets can result in noticeable changes in a resulting cured wall, such as misalignment of brick coursings.
When multiple formliner sheets are used, the sheets are typically butted together or overlapped such that a single, continuous cured wall panel is formed. Often the resulting wall may show evidence that multiple formliners were used, for example including a line or visible seam at the locations where individual formliners met.
There has also been difficulty in creating a wall having an angle or joint, for example at locations where two non-parallel walls meet, along walls at recesses for doors and windows, etc. To form a wall termination having brick fascia oriented at angles to one another, contractors have placed prior art formwork butted together at angles to one another. Although this does create a formwork pattern, the formliners generally do not mate well or seal against one another, and concrete slurry can migrate between and behind the formliners. This migration leads to imperfections in the finished panel.
There remains a need for a formliner system capable of maintaining an intended orientation regardless of temperature changes and loading conditions. There remains a need for a formliner system capable of using multiple formliner sheets to create a wall that appears to have been formed using a single, continuous formliner sheet.
There remains a need for a formliner system capable of providing for joints, angles and corners, and for reducing the difficulty involved in creating a high quality cast wall.
U.S. Patent Application No. 61/540,448, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/706,633 and U.S. Pat. No. 7,871,054 are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. All US patents and applications and all other published documents mentioned anywhere in this application are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
Without limiting the scope of the invention a brief summary of some of the claimed embodiments of the invention is set forth below. Additional details of the summarized embodiments of the invention and/or additional embodiments of the invention may be found in the Detailed Description of the Invention below.
A brief abstract of the technical disclosure in the specification is provided as well only for the purposes of complying with 37 C.F.R. 1.72. The abstract is not intended to be used for interpreting the scope of the claims.